As our unusual “summer” enters its final month, the kids this week returned to school. And we returned to the daily grind of making lunches, 6am rowing starts, music lessons, and countless loads of washing every week – I haven’t missed it I can tell you. Nor the peak hour traffic that results! Whilst there was no excitement evident amongst the men-children as they headed back to school, I know they were happy to return and catch up with their mates after a few months off. And they’re both pretty pumped about a big year of sport in Year 10. (Let’s hope it’s also a big year of study for both of them!)

It seems every newspaper carries a mandatory image of twins or triplets or even better quads in school uniform, as they head to school for their first prep year. It reminds me of our own front page photo of the men-children some 10 years ago (that’s it pictured for you) which was pretty exciting at the time, and really is a great moment to have captured for posterity. I still remember the boys wearing their school uniforms home from the store, such was their thrill at owning one. And of course the pride I felt whilst blinking back tears as we stood in the prep classroom and launched them on their school journey. No less joyful was repeating it all 7 years later with our daughter. They are moments you could relive a thousand times over and each would be as wonderful as the first!

In contrast to the boys, Sister of a Man-Child’s excitement was palpable at entering Year 3. She even sent me a text message yesterday when she got home “Hay (sic) mum first day of school great. Thumbs up”, complete with thumbs up images! Now before you think our 8-year-old daughter has a mobile phone, not quite. For Christmas she was lucky enough to get an iPod Touch (as a modern-day alternative to the Nintendo DS). Whilst most people would think she would use it for music, it comes with so many other features she’s barely had the earphones on. Why would you when it also has countless games free from the App store, a camera better than mine, access to YouTube, and most importantly the ability to text (via iMessage) and use Facetime with other iPhone/iPod users. The ONLY thing it doesn’t do is make phone calls – seriously. So when Ruby’s in a wireless environment, she’s practically got her own iPhone. A “Digital Native” in the making!

She recently found some friends with iPods or iPhones, and now they’re madly texting each other and doing Facetime. The only issue is that Ruby doesn’t have her own email address, so she’s using one of mine. As a result, all her messaging appears automatically on my phone too. It was fascinating to observe the conversation unfold between three young girls, and see them helping each other text and use Facetime. And then installing Emoji (an app for texting icons). Now they seem to send each other hundreds of smiley faces and other images. Although the other morning I was sitting at work with a stream of messages (complete with sound notifications) going off at my desk which got a little out of hand. I ended up joining the conversation and asking them to stop, which took a while because we had to convince one of the girls that it really was the “Mother” texting. Not surprisingly, we have now banned the use of the iPod before school and not until after homework is done in the evenings – like all fun and highly addictive “toys”, good in moderation.

So back to school and back to the routine. And back to family meals which are a nice change, especially since during the holidays we rarely had both men-children at home for a meal. No doubt the novelty will wear off quickly!! 🙂

Exams are done. School is out. By the time this post is published the men-children will have completed Year 9 and the school reports will be in an envelope on their way home to us. Time for a stiff drink!

Actually following the exam results, which we received earlier this week, it has to be said the receipt of the school report is somewhat of an anti-climax. Especially the end-of-year report, when discussions of improvements that can be made are based on the year 2012, which to men-children about to embark on two months of holidays must seem an eternity away. Nevertheless, we always diligently note the marks, and read the comments, as the latter are by far the most telling indicator of real performance and application in my view. As we have long maintained, it’s not the marks but the effort that we are interested in.

As an aside, do you remember when you were a kid how LONG it seemed for Christmas to arrive each year, and the long hot summer holidays that seemed to go forever? Perhaps it was my idyllic childhood, growing up in a suburban street full of kids, allowed to roam all day, coming and going from house to house just to quench our thirst or satisfy our hunger, before we headed back down to the “creek” to feed horses, or climb trees, or ride our bikes (yep, Doncaster was almost the “Greenfields” back then). No fear of strangers, or need for mobile phones which our parents could contact us on – just the simple freedoms that kids should enjoy as part of an innocent and healthy childhood.

Anyway, back to the men-children. For those who are wondering about the exams results, and their impact on our bank balance (you may recall we openly BRIBED them earlier this year), we are currently $400 poorer. That equates to four “B” results on the exams at $100 each. And you may wonder how the money was earned – well, in fact one man-child earned $400 and one earned $0. C’est la vie! Both are smart enough to have had equal opportunity to earn the money (up to $600 each was at stake). However, one is not the best student (read lazy, and/or disengaged with the academic learning approach) so not surprisingly he didn’t do very well. As I said to them, you both got the marks (and the money) you deserved. I was somewhat bemused by the man-child who even convinced a teacher to give him an extra ½ mark so he would achieve the B grade, thereby earning himself an extra $100!!! I think he’ll go a long way somehow. :}

You might ask if we’re surprised at the results? I suppose not, especially following a meeting at school to warn us to expect bad results for one man-child. We’re probably more disappointed that he didn’t achieve his best, and is wasting the opportunities he has at school. (We won’t be the first or the last parent to think that about their child!!) And we did actually want to give them the money, as it’s a nice way to end the year and start the holidays. The man-child with $0 earnings was smart enough to pick up some work with a mate’s dad, so at least he’ll earn some beer money in the run up to Christmas. Don’t feign shock I called it “beer” money will you – we’ve all been teenagers!

So there you have it – Year 9 gone, just like that. The Men-Children are now closer to 16 than 15, a fact that scares me every day. I hope they enjoy the break, and I hope they look back on their summer holidays with the same fondness I did in years to come.

For all parents, the end of the school year is looming. In no time the kids will all be on holidays for about two months (we workers can only wish), wondering what to do with themselves, and bleeding the parental ATM dry.

We survived the end of year exams, although the results are not in yet. But that in itself is a major triumph, especially since we were at the school only a few weeks ago for a meeting to discuss one of the men-children and basically to receive a warning that his results would not be good. (I really hope they’re wrong and we’re pleasantly surprised – is that naive or just optimistic?). They basically told us that whilst they couldn’t fault our son’s commitment to sport at school, he needed to show similar commitment to academic subjects. They, like most other mainstream schools, make no apologies for being an academic school first, with a multitude of other “opportunities” second. It seemed a little late to be telling us this to be honest, although it didn’t come as a complete surprise. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink! (Ditto homework).

Following our “meeting” we tried to ensure the men-children made the most of weekend study time. That basically meant curtailing their social lives for two weekends and not allowing them out on a Saturday night. As they still had serious sporting commitments, this wasn’t actually a bad idea in our minds. However, in the eyes of men-children, spending a Saturday night at home with your parents is about the worst thing you can do. Honestly, you should have heard the carry on. You would have thought we’d asked them to walk naked down Glenferrie Road after school.

We also received some interesting correspondence from the school during the year about an “incident” involving both our men-children. I can’t help but love the tone of carefully crafted letters to parents that are so politically correct in describing an event. So the “serious incident” that involved a number of boys (including ours), followed “ongoing negative interactions” and “verbal interplay”, resulting in a “physical interaction” breaking out between some boys. In other words a bunch of testosterone-laden boys who had been egging each other on all year finally had a shit fight and tried to punch the crap out of each other. Thankfully both of our boys were deemed to be fringe dwellers only, and one was even credited with helping break up the fight. He later admitted that he’d actually managed to land a great punch, and even accidentally slugged one of his mates (LOL). All part of being boys especially at an all boy’s school. Of course I completely understand the school’s need to write a letter to all involved, and I’m thankful that ours didn’t do anything too bad.

As for how they’ll amuse themselves over the holidays – thankfully we love camps, and so do they! Especially the summer camps and sporting camps that the school offer. They will both be away before Christmas and again in late January. We think it’s great for them to get away with mates on camp, and also to have time away from us. We (that’s Father of a Man-Child, Sister of a Man-Child and myself) also enjoy the unusual dynamic that a house with a single child brings. It’s incredibly quiet and we seem to enjoy spontaneous outings more frequently!!!

So onto the end of Year 9 and exam results next week. You may recall the bribe we handed to the boys earlier this year – $100 for every B grade or better in their exams. I suspect one will have a windfall shortly, and the other will be looking for lots of odd jobs he can do over the holidays. 🙂